


Uplifted

by bumblefuck



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-05
Updated: 2010-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-12 10:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bumblefuck/pseuds/bumblefuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ensign Taitt saves the day <i>and</i> gets the guy. Not bad, all in all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uplifted

**Author's Note:**

> This is set just after the _Star Trek TNG_ episode [](http:)'Descent, Part II'. You probably don't have to have seen that to read this; just know that to escape a Borg ship the _Enterprise_ hid in the corona of a star, and Ensign Taitt created a particle beam that destroyed the ship and allowed them to escape. Just a quick short fic I wrote while watching that ep.

When it was over, when the particle beam she created had engulfed the Borg ship and allowed them to escape and their missing crewmembers were safely back aboard the _Enterprise_ , Ensign Taitt slumped against her console. Her knees were weak with relief, and she allowed herself a moment to let it wash through her before straightening once more, glad that, for once, she wasn't standing. Her fingers flew over the touch screen in front of her, revising and rechecking the calculations that had saved all their lives.

Looking back on it, she could barely believe it had worked. _It shouldn't have,_ she thought. And it probably shouldn't - a risky plan from a junior crewmember who had barely been in the position for six weeks wasn't the stuff successful missions were made of. She remembered the doubts she felt, seemingly echoed verbatim by Lieutenant Barnaby.

 _"...this isn't the Academy," he had said, "and a student thesis is a long way from a workable plan. If her calculations are off, that eruption could encompass us!"_

 _"Well I'll just have to make sure my calculations are accurate, Lieutenant."_

For a moment she was back there in the corona of the alien sun, surrounded by a power that she had only studied but had never before come so close to, everything hanging on her words, on an acting captain's confidence in an untried ensign.

She remembered how proud she had been when her voice hadn't shaken.

A voice at her elbow startled her out of her reverie.

"Ensign," said Lieutenant Barnaby. He sat stiffly in his seat, movements almost awkward.

"Lieutenant," she replied. Her fingers paused in their movements as she nodded at him, then resumed, inputting information about temperatures and solar dynamics. Something beeped and she caught it automatically, recombining this new information into her work as well.

"Ensign Taitt," he began, and she wondered if she was in for another dressing-down, if his officer's ego had reared up again and stymied whatever appreciation he might have had for her work. "Your shift finishes in half an hour, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir." Would he wait, she wondered, to say anything? Was he at least giving her the courtesy of not scolding her on the bridge?

"Well then," he said, and she braced herself for what would come next, "would you like to join me for dinner?"

She blinked up at him, surprised, and he quickly flushed pink. "I only - it wouldn't be a date, or anything," he said, and she began to smile. "I thought your work today admirable, and was wondering if you'd tell me more about it." He coughed, nervous.

She thought back to their time in the sun again, when her constructed beam had caught the enemy ship, a welcome triumph in what seemed like days fraught with stress and danger. Thought of how he had smiled at their success, how they had worked together to defeat their enemy. How he had cried, _"She did it!_ " before catching himself and looking away, regaining his composure.

It was a day for taking risks, it seemed.

"Alright," she said, catching the flash of pleasure in his eyes as she agreed. It made her smile widen, and she said, "But call me Zandra," she told him, and he nodded, the smile tugging at the corners of his lips again. "It'll be weird if we keep calling each other 'Ensign' and 'Lieutenant' through the whole meal."

"Albert," he said in turn.

"Okay, Albert."

They turned back to their respective consoles once more, working in silence for a minute until Taitt said, offhand, "I wouldn't mind if it was a date."

Next to her, Barnaby didn't say anything, but she saw his smile and answered it with one of her own.


End file.
